Test Drove ELR today

Well the dealers here in S. fla are getting in a few ELR's and I test drove one today. The cars been at the dealer for a week or two already and apparently no takers at $81K. The car is very nice and interior appointments are very nice with the suede, carbon and wood trim. It does feel a lot like a Volt but the suspension is much superior. The rear set are pretty much useless unless for small adults or children. I've wanted one of these since I first saw the concept but as much as I want to support Cadillac they just overpriced this car as there is just too much other competition in this price range. The car is slow small and has a limited use unlike the Tesla. We'll see if Cadillac gets it in a year or so and starts offering price incentives as I truly don't think too many people will shell out this kind of money.

Re: Test Drove ELR today

The ELR is indeed slow. It's 0.2 seconds slower than the Volt from 0-60 (about 9 seconds in EV mode, or in 8 seconds if you're burning gas). That's about the speed of a $16k Honda Fit. So until you use up your 37 miles of charge and enter range extending mode with the gas engine, expect half-price Volts to edge ahead briefly if you try to race. And you're gonna be smoked by any upstart $27k V6 Camry that races you off the line, regardless of whether you're burning gas or not. Sorry.

Re: Test Drove ELR today

Originally Posted by Blastphemy

The ELR is indeed slow. It's 0.2 seconds slower than the Volt from 0-60 (about 9 seconds in EV mode, or in 8 seconds if you're burning gas). That's about the speed of a $16k Honda Fit. So until you use up your 37 miles of charge and enter range extending mode with the gas engine, expect half-price Volts to edge ahead briefly if you try to race. And you're gonna be smoked by any upstart $27k V6 Camry that races you off the line, regardless of whether you're burning gas or not. Sorry.

car is not a barn burner, but it is not slow...and your figures and facts are a little off

ELR 0-60 mph: 7.8 sec. – range extending mode 8.8 sec. EV mode this beats the VOLT by about just under a second because they upped the torque to 295 lb-ft

and you don't have to use up the charge for the better acceleration, like the ATS and CTS the ELR has a mode switch and you can lock out the battery, this mode is called hold and you presumably use it to save the battery so you can use it in your destination city say on a long commute form say San Diego to LA but this can be a sport mode of sorts

"The ELR's drive motor makes 181 horsepower in Extended Range mode; if the driver calls for it and there is enough battery, the ELR's combined system will make up to 217 horsepower, a serious bump from the Volt's 149. Running as an EV, the ELR's acceleration to 60 mph is 9.0 seconds, 0.2 seconds slower than the last Volt we tested because the 4,054 pound ELR is nearly 300 pounds heftier. With its full 217 ponies saddled up, the ELR gets to 60 mph in 8.1 seconds and slips through the quarter mile in 16.5 seconds at 87 mph, putting the ELR in a dead heat with a $16,000 Honda Fit. But the motor's instantaneous torque will fool you into thinking it's quicker."

Originally Posted by pissedoffwookiee

and you don't have to use up the charge for the better acceleration, like the ATS and CTS the ELR has a mode switch and you can lock out the battery, this mode is called hold and you presumably use it to save the battery so you can use it in your destination city say on a long commute form say San Diego to LA but this can be a sport mode of sorts

The review clearly states that the speed bump occurs in Extended Range mode (when the battery is mostly depleted), not in Hold mode or Mountain mode. Sport mode in the ELR and Volt also does not engage the engine, which - I admit - is counterintuitive (and a bad engineering decision, IMHO). Since I actually drive a Volt every day, I happen to know a little bit about this, Chewbacca.

Yes, the Volt and ELR are faster than the truly sluggish Toyota Prius and Mitsubishi i-MiEV, but the Volt/ELR are slower than a Nissan Leaf, Toyota Rav4 EV, and most other cars in the $40k-89,500 range. While the Volt (or ELR) can smoke an inattentive ICE off the line due to the delicious all-electric linear acceleration, you'd better be quick because once that ICE gets into gear, you'll eventually be eating its dust.

Re: Test Drove ELR today

The good news is I don't care that I get bad gas mileage I get good smiles.....going to spend a day with the ELR in Vegas on Tuesday I'll report back what I discover.....also car and driver could have gotten a bad early one same thing happened with press ATS manuals the pre production transmissions were really bad but replaced for production now the stick is really nice

Re: Test Drove ELR today

I've now noticed 125 ELR's on cars.com and 3 on eBay. The high bid on eBay is is now $2,000 with over 30 bids!! This truly shows how bad GM priced this car. If it were to be a winner, all or most of these cars would of been sold by now. I'm still though a buyer but at $67K!

Re: Test Drove ELR today

Drove the ELR and tesla model s p85 back to back yesterday and the ELR is kinda impressive, the tesla is absolutely gorgeous no two ways about it, then again so is the ELR I'd say the ELR is a 9 and the tesla is a 10...... The tesla is an outright rocket ship, but handles like a truck, definitely not for turning ELR was an average basic car in terms of acceleration but is kinda fun and zippy when it comes to turning.....this is directly related to engineering resources.....you can tell tesla is a startup and has a long ways to go before it can have the feature list you'd expect in a car (no center console, no map pockets, basic suspension = more body roll/nose dive) I believe tesla will get there the just need a generation or two to build up to it....huge advantage to gm because they can focus on what makes ELR unique they already know how to make a car.....tesla on the other hand are still learning how to make a car.......I'm reading a lot about how ELR is too expensive, but going back to my previous point tesla is downright missing so many basic features ( many can be purchased) the value argument becomes fuzzy, and by the time you try to option the tesla to have most of what ELR has your at $130k.......at this point if one chooses tesla over ELR I'm wondering if has more to do lack of love for Cadillac more than it lacking anything

Re: Test Drove ELR today

Your comments well taken as I haven't driven a Tesla. I'm still considering a ELR but just waiting to see how the sales go. A dealer I spoke to today said some dealers are getting up to $5K premium over sticker which I find very hard to believe.

Re: Test Drove ELR today

"The ELR's drive motor makes 181 horsepower in Extended Range mode; if the driver calls for it and there is enough battery, the ELR's combined system will make up to 217 horsepower, a serious bump from the Volt's 149. Running as an EV, the ELR's acceleration to 60 mph is 9.0 seconds, 0.2 seconds slower than the last Volt we tested because the 4,054 pound ELR is nearly 300 pounds heftier. With its full 217 ponies saddled up, the ELR gets to 60 mph in 8.1 seconds and slips through the quarter mile in 16.5 seconds at 87 mph, putting the ELR in a dead heat with a $16,000 Honda Fit. But the motor's instantaneous torque will fool you into thinking it's quicker."

The review clearly states that the speed bump occurs in Extended Range mode (when the battery is mostly depleted), not in Hold mode or Mountain mode. Sport mode in the ELR and Volt also does not engage the engine, which - I admit - is counterintuitive (and a bad engineering decision, IMHO). Since I actually drive a Volt every day, I happen to know a little bit about this, Chewbacca.

Yes, the Volt and ELR are faster than the truly sluggish Toyota Prius and Mitsubishi i-MiEV, but the Volt/ELR are slower than a Nissan Leaf, Toyota Rav4 EV, and most other cars in the $40k-89,500 range. While the Volt (or ELR) can smoke an inattentive ICE off the line due to the delicious all-electric linear acceleration, you'd better be quick because once that ICE gets into gear, you'll eventually be eating its dust.

HOLD mode is in fact the way to get maximum acceleration out of the volt, the volt is rated at 12 kilowatts but in fact has a 16 kilowatt battery and is always maintaining a 4 kilowatt reserve/buffer and will not allow the battery to come to a complete depletion or a full charge.....cadillac explained to me that a full/overcharge and undercharge can brick the battery and cited instances where this does happen to teslas which can drive to full depletion of the battery....in hold mode ELR will use BOTH engine and battery to drive the car, and i experienced this yesterday....the only silly thing is you cannot have this max power mode on at the same time as sport mode......when you boot the accelerator in hold mode the engine roars to life and goes to a high rev and stays there while the car is accelerating (just like a CVT car does) bottom line is are you going to win stoplight drag races with ricers NO can the car get out of its own way YES.....the Tesla was interesting because, frankly, other than that HUUUUUGE radio screen it's not really luxurious or special, seats(not as good as ELR), steering wheel (not as good as ELR), doors (not as good as ELR missing map pockets and bottle holders, and ELR map pockets are suede lined), material finishes (not as good as ELR), price (not as good as ELR), the rear doors on the tesla are nice but they only open about 2/3 as far as in my ATS or SRX so getting in and out may better than ELR (it is a coupe) it's no where near what any other sedan you can buy has, the telsa is very cool, very fast, and very sexy though, just not very luxurious

Re: Test Drove ELR today

During my test drive, I put the ELR in Hold mode and the acceleration didn't feel any different from Touring (Normal) mode. Sport mode was the only setting that made the car feel faster (even if it was just faster on the low end and slower on the high end, for no net overall difference in acceleration). I did hear the engine rev up to meet the demand in Hold, but it didn't happen until I was well up to 45mph, and didn't make any difference in speed that I could tell. I clocked 0-60 three different times by flooring the pedal, and it was the same each time regardless of the mode I selected.

What I need to do next is ask the dealer to call me when test drives have depleted the ELR's battery on a given day and then take the car out in Extended Range mode and see if Touring or Sport are faster than when I was driving in Hold with a full battery.

I also have to remember to see if the side mirrors are powered, and if there's a setting to automatically fold in the mirrors when the car is turned off. I saw someone post that question on another forum and it made me wonder. I'd like to find the ELR manual online, but so far have failed to locate a PDF.

Re: Test Drove ELR today

Originally Posted by Blastphemy

During my test drive, I put the ELR in Hold mode and the acceleration didn't feel any different from Touring (Normal) mode. Sport mode was the only setting that made the car feel faster (even if it was just faster on the low end and slower on the high end, for no net overall difference in acceleration). I did hear the engine rev up to meet the demand in Hold, but it didn't happen until I was well up to 45mph, and didn't make any difference in speed that I could tell. I clocked 0-60 three different times by flooring the pedal, and it was the same each time regardless of the mode I selected.

What I need to do next is ask the dealer to call me when test drives have depleted the ELR's battery on a given day and then take the car out in Extended Range mode and see if Touring or Sport are faster than when I was driving in Hold with a full battery.

I also have to remember to see if the side mirrors are powered, and if there's a setting to automatically fold in the mirrors when the car is turned off. I saw someone post that question on another forum and it made me wonder. I'd like to find the ELR manual online, but so far have failed to locate a PDF.

i doubt it has the folding mirrors, Cadillac just doesn't see the need for them the last 3 cars they released had that feature missing, i don't think they put it on a car since the SRX, and ELR has an added reason to not have it which is weight and drain on battery, they have to count every ounce and watt on cars like this

Re: Test Drove ELR today

I take your point about added weight and battery drain. However, Cadillac's other $75,000+ luxury car (the Escalade) does have power-folding mirrors. To me, any high-end luxury car these days needs to have all the accoutrements expected of it, and dropping any of the little things like power-folding mirrors, heated steering wheel, auto-dimming mirrors, nav system, and other stuff like that could be just enough to turn off a prospective buyer. (I'm not saying the ELR is missing those things; they're just general examples I came up with off the top of my head.)

The ELR does have a powered-open/close cup holder that can heat/cool whatever beverage is sitting there, so I find it hard to believe that Cadillac would spend the watts and weight on that and not on the more practical power-folding mirrors. But that's what happened, and you are 100% correct - I stopped by the dealership on the way home from work and, indeed, it does not have power-folding mirrors. I wonder how many other $75k+ cars don't have power folding mirrors?

Re: Test Drove ELR today

the ELR has a motorized cover for the cup holder but they are not heated and cooled, Escalade has been around since late 2006 like i said i cant think of any new Cadillac since the SRX (arrived 2010) where the motorized mirrors have been an option....Escalade has a 6.2 liter 400+ horsepower truck V8 that thing can power your neighborhood, no worries about mirrors, but they did delete options like the spare and motorized center row seats, and reduced engine size from 6.2 to 6.0 liters for the hybrid Escalade to save weight and improve efficiency.